Middlemarch, Page 79

  CHAPTER LXXIX.

  "Now, I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was Despond."--BUNYAN.

  When Rosamond was quiet, and Lydgate had left her, hoping that shemight soon sleep under the effect of an anodyne, he went into thedrawing-room to fetch a book which he had left there, meaning to spendthe evening in his work-room, and he saw on the table Dorothea's letteraddressed to him. He had not ventured to ask Rosamond if Mrs. Casaubonhad called, but the reading of this letter assured him of the fact, forDorothea mentioned that it was to be carried by herself.

  When Will Ladislaw came in a little later Lydgate met him with asurprise which made it clear that he had not been told of the earliervisit, and Will could not say, "Did not Mrs. Lydgate tell you that Icame this morning?"

  "Poor Rosamond is ill," Lydgate added immediately on his greeting.

  "Not seriously, I hope," said Will.

  "No--only a slight nervous shock--the effect of some agitation. Shehas been overwrought lately. The truth is, Ladislaw, I am an unluckydevil. We have gone through several rounds of purgatory since youleft, and I have lately got on to a worse ledge of it than ever. Isuppose you are only just come down--you look rather battered--youhave not been long enough in the town to hear anything?"

  "I travelled all night and got to the White Hart at eight o'clock thismorning. I have been shutting myself up and resting," said Will,feeling himself a sneak, but seeing no alternative to this evasion.

  And then he heard Lydgate's account of the troubles which Rosamond hadalready depicted to him in her way. She had not mentioned the fact ofWill's name being connected with the public story--this detail notimmediately affecting her--and he now heard it for the first time.

  "I thought it better to tell you that your name is mixed up with thedisclosures," said Lydgate, who could understand better than most menhow Ladislaw might be stung by the revelation. "You will be sure tohear it as soon as you turn out into the town. I suppose it is truethat Raffles spoke to you."

  "Yes," said Will, sardonically. "I shall be fortunate if gossip doesnot make me the most disreputable person in the whole affair. I shouldthink the latest version must be, that I plotted with Raffles to murderBulstrode, and ran away from Middlemarch for the purpose."

  He was thinking "Here is a new ring in the sound of my name torecommend it in her hearing; however--what does it signify now?"

  But he said nothing of Bulstrode's offer to him. Will was very openand careless about his personal affairs, but it was among the moreexquisite touches in nature's modelling of him that he had a delicategenerosity which warned him into reticence here. He shrank from sayingthat he had rejected Bulstrode's money, in the moment when he waslearning that it was Lydgate's misfortune to have accepted it.

  Lydgate too was reticent in the midst of his confidence. He made noallusion to Rosamond's feeling under their trouble, and of Dorothea heonly said, "Mrs. Casaubon has been the one person to come forward andsay that she had no belief in any of the suspicions against me."Observing a change in Will's face, he avoided any further mention ofher, feeling himself too ignorant of their relation to each other notto fear that his words might have some hidden painful bearing on it.And it occurred to him that Dorothea was the real cause of the presentvisit to Middlemarch.

  The two men were pitying each other, but it was only Will who guessedthe extent of his companion's trouble. When Lydgate spoke withdesperate resignation of going to settle in London, and said with afaint smile, "We shall have you again, old fellow." Will feltinexpressibly mournful, and said nothing. Rosamond had that morningentreated him to urge this step on Lydgate; and it seemed to him as ifhe were beholding in a magic panorama a future where he himself wassliding into that pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations ofcircumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than any singlemomentous bargain.

  We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at ourfuture selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent intoinsipid misdoing and shabby achievement. Poor Lydgate was inwardlygroaning on that margin, and Will was arriving at it. It seemed to himthis evening as if the cruelty of his outburst to Rosamond had made anobligation for him, and he dreaded the obligation: he dreaded Lydgate'sunsuspecting good-will: he dreaded his own distaste for his spoiledlife, which would leave him in motiveless levity.